Dreams are funny things aren’t they? They can be about the weirdest things at the weirdest times. Sometimes you know what their about, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you want to know what they mean and other times you wish you didn’t. Reoccurring dreams are the worst, or rather reoccurring nightmares.

I woke up that morning from the reoccurring dream I had been having on and off for the last eight years. It starts with my mum, screaming at my so called father, asking him if he cheated on her with the two bit hooker that was supposed to be her best friend.

He just stands there and nods, the sad thing is he doesn’t look ashamed or sorry, regretful, maybe, but only of the fact that he got himself caught, and not that he had done the most dishonorable thing a person could do. Meanwhile I just stand there, I know I should be helping but what can an eight year old child really do to stop this. I remember yelling for him, crying for him, or rather at him, for mummy. I remember the split second where I understood what he had done and how disgusted I felt of him. I then watched him walk away. He walked out the door, not even once turning around to say goodbye to me, his own daughter. I still remember he had a striped shirt on and I remember seeing that last as he walked out the door.

The last couple of months, the dream has been getting longer though. It then goes to, well actually I don’t remember how long after he left, maybe weeks maybe months, we still hadn’t seen or heard from him. Mum was throwing some of his stuff in the bin. I don’t remember where my brother was but she was throwing out the stuff he had left behind, trophies, books and this old photo of him holding up a fish from a day he took us fishing. My sister was crying but I was trying to hold it in. I was more angry than upset, not at mum, still at him. My sister went and got most of the stuff from the bin, but I grabbed the photo. I don’t know why I did it, but I did, and I don’t know why I kept it, but I did.

A couple of nights ago it got even longer, like I was remembering these things one by one, which defiantly wasn’t a good thing. The next memory it turns to is when I'm about nine. By this stage we were going to see dad on a regular basis, not a lot but every second weekend. He was living in this cramped apartment with only two bedrooms for the four of us when we stayed there. He was still seeing her, Jodie her name was, it sounds like a hookers name, I hated her, still do. It shows this night, when we were there and he was having a fight with mum over the phone. They were screaming and yelling and he was swearing at her horribly. I was crying but I was scared, he had this anger look in his eyes, like if you got in his way he would hurt you. He hung up on her but she rang back. The phone kept ringing but he wouldn’t answer it. I knew it was her, so I went to answer it. He screamed at me not to answer the phone and slammed it on the hook before I could speak into it. I remember wondering for the first time what it was like for mum when we all went to dads, how she felt all alone in an empty house after twenty years of being married.

But last night the dream got even heavier. It turns into a scene at MacDonald’s. That’s where we used too get picked up and dropped of between parents when he moved in with her and got married. It makes us sound like she, horrible little sheep that get passed on when someone gets sick if them. But I suddenly realize this isn’t just any time that we are getting picked up, it was the last time I was to be picked up from there, and the last time I would ever go there.

Were sitting in the car when my mother arrives, and my so called father jumps out of the car, walks around it and grabs me by my clothes and drags me up to my mother. I knew what was happening, and then again I didn’t. I knew he was sick of my attitude, but I hated him and I didn’t care. What I didn’t know was what he was going to say next. I could hear my brother and sister screaming from the car, they had no idea what was going on but they were really scared. Then I hear those words, horrible words. NEVER, EVER BRING THAT BITCH BACK TO MY HOUSE AGAIN.

If words could kill, they would be the ones. This is why I wake up crying and choking and coughing like there is no tomorrow and it takes me at least half an hour to settle. I look at the clock, four-thirty, good enough, time to get up; maybe I might actually get some homework done.